Bull-Leaper
by Atana
Summary: This is a Project A-ko/Superman-Wonder Woman crossover that I wrote with the inspiration and encouragement of my dear departed friend, the great Supe-Wondy fanfic author David Schock. Clark and Diana – parents of Eiko Magami – rally with family members to save the former Captain Napolipolita from alcoholism after she loses Hikaru Daitokuji to an untimely death.
1. Chapter 1

** THE BULL-LEAPER**

**CHAPTER 1: Life on Planet Earth**

**On the morning of Thursday, March 15, 2044, Aysheia Lisia Napolipolita-Daitokuji woke up and lay quietly in her bed. **

**Slowly stretching her long limbs (she had been troubled with arthritis more and more as the years flew by), Aysha's eyes now traced the lines of the carvings that decorated their bedroom ceiling. She listened to the Terran birdsong coming from outside their balcony window, and to the sounds of her household staff busying themselves in preparation for the day. **

**In that warm and drowsy state that hovers somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, she thought about the peaceful happiness she now enjoyed in her life. With the exception of Kir and Athenia, all of her children were grown and had left the Mansion to lead their own lives and seek their own destinies. The Mansion was too quiet for her taste these days. Grandchildren were the obvious solution, and the more the merrier. **

**Such was the Cygnan Way. Alpha Cygni – the planet from which Aysha hailed – was nothing less than an unapologetic matriarchy where it was every woman's duty to produce as many citizens of the Realm as possible. Queen Zazen'lda the First – the mother of C-ko Kotobuki – had reigned there with peace and prosperity for many a year, her own daughters doing their part to fulfill the Cygnan Way themselves and thus ensuring the future of the Empire.**

**XXXXX**

**Alia Makita had been her eldest child. Who would have thought that the tiny baby in her young arms would someday command the Cygnan Space Fleet? Life could really surprise you, now and again. **

**Now in her early thirties (as Terrans reckon time), Alia hadn't produced any children to date, but Aysha kept hoping. "After all, my own mother was a hen with one chick," she had said in her enthusiastic avocation of the joys of motherhood. "Even one baby would ensure the continuation of our House, and would bring you great happiness as well. A Cygnan doesn't know what pride is until she looks into the eyes of her own daughter!"**

**Alia usually smiled and shrugged, saying that she'd get around to it. Giving such an answer to a woman who had once commanded twelve thousand troops would have intimidated Alia if it hadn't been for the fact that she herself commanded over a million. **

**Ultimately, her earnest and persistent mother would come to realize that Alia's life was not hers to plan. Learning this hard lesson had made it easier for Napolipolita as her other children left home. **

**Both Alana and Arisa now served as officers in the Allied Defense Force, an amalgam of the old EDF and the Cygnan military machine formerly known as Gaia Front. These two chicks of hers were leading happy lives with their lifemates, and were producing a satisfactory number of daughters (Aysha no longer expected any grandsons, realizing that her own son Kir's birth had been a fluke). It seemed to be as true as it had been in the days of the Great Xramcrusher Bacchanalia Napolipolita that members of that House bore ample fruit, but females were their only bumper crop. **

**Atina initially studied nuclear physics but became bored quickly. She presently worked on Jupiter Station as a ship designer, hoping to defy the laws of physics by creating a ship that allowed its occupants to explore event horizons - the distant edges between deep space and the gravitational pull of black holes. **

**XXXXX**

**Fifth daughter Akana (also known as Mama's Little Baby, except in front of people) had given her mother yet another lesson in letting go.**

**Like her sisters before her, Aki had planned on a military career. She had even spent the summers of her sixteenth and seventeenth years at Queen Hippolyta's palace on Themyscira Island. It had come as a rude shock to her mother when Aki told her she'd turned down the proffered ADF commission, choosing instead to join her father as navigator and chief helpmate in his intergalactic spice-trading business.**

**Predictably, Aysha had been angry. That Akana had grown to stand over six feet tall and possessed the body of an Olympic athlete was but ashes in her mother's mouth. **

"**All that talent gone to waste! All that training! Of all my children, I had thought Aki would have been my warrior." **

**It had taken Hikaru to defuse her rageful disappointment. "She's young. Let her tramp around the galaxy if she wants. Her father seems like a good fellow. She'll have no trouble joining the Cygnan Space Fleet or our own ADF. But she'll do so in her own time - not yours or mine."**

**This comment about Aki's father had surprised Aysha. Historically, her lifemate had shown nothing but contempt for Alie Tuzoia. The Anathasian had been incarcerated at Gonidesh, after all! Hikaru had harped on that one for quite a while, not unlike a dog chewing a bone until it worked its way into the soft marrow beneath. **

**Perhaps the humility imparted by the infirmities of aging had softened Hikaru Daitokuji's soul. No matter what the cause, Aysha had been grateful for a respite from his occasional jabs about her wild and decidedly alcohol-ridden past. It went without saying that Aysha herself had never seen Alie again. Why in Cybele's name would she?**

**Poor Alie. He'd become a pawn in Commander Maldekai's eternal quest to keep her command at any price. She had concocted the scheme that had sent the young man to Gonidesh. Anxious that young Napolipolita would ultimately succeed her own mother as Commander, Maldekai had invented the false charges for the purpose of hurting her. Aysha had loved Alie at the time, and Maldekai knew it. **

_**That cow!**_

**As it happened, the Commander cooked her own goose; the Queen had gotten wise to her little conspiracies. Maldekai had been fortunate to escape execution. Aysha herself would have happily condemned her nasty backside to Gonidesh for a couple of decades, to see how she liked it! **

_**That flat-chested old sourpuss. Good riddance to bad rubbish!**_

**Aysha silently chided herself for not being more charitable (but for only about seven seconds or so). She had seen her husband's occasional boiling rages reduced to simmers as of late, and wished that her own horns could be filed down an inch or two with no effort on her part. Terrans called this phenomenon "mellowing with age."**

**_Oh well. Can't have everything, _****as her stepdaughter once said.**

**It hadn't even occurred to Aysha that Akana – who had the Sight - had foreseen her own father's death two years from now. The girl had simply put her own career plans on hold to be with him.**

**XXXXX**

**Aysha sighed now, smelling wonderful breakfast smells and enjoying the lemon-yellow sunlight filtering through her windows and reflecting on the polished parquet floor. The former starship captain rubbed her eyes and thought of her life on Earth. She said a silent prayer of gratitude for the wonderful children it had bestowed upon her. **

**Shiiko Rubia Napolipolita-Daitokuji had been touted as the first fully documented Cygnan-Terran birth on Planet Earth (N.B. There were plenty of other little hybrids running around Graviton City by then, but nobody talked about them). **

_**Great Mother! Could it have possibly been nearly twenty-five years ago? **_

**Because the first alien leader on Earth and the wealthiest industrialist in the Pacific Rim were both rich and famous, people around the world had been fascinated by Shiiko's birth. Even the tabloid rag the couple called "the National Perspirer" had published a special supplement that featured Shiiko's birth. **

**The arrival of each Napolipolita-Daitokuji child had been a topic of international interest. Ultimately, some of the cattier individuals in Graviton City high society had publicly stated that the Daitokujis had a child every two years just to thumb their wealthy noses at the public. There was also a rumor that Planned Parenthood had instituted a global boycott against NDFG products and services, but that had never been substantiated.**

**The former Miss Napolipolita had refused the facilities of the Junko Daitokuji Memorial Hospital for Shiiko's delivery, just to stick it to those annoying Terran male doctors. She had simply taken her husband's arm and strode home to have their first child under their own roof. Only wimps and Earth women had babies in hospitals. **

_**What were they? Sick?**_

**Shiiko grew up studied, analyzed, and genome-coded; her height, weight, and metabolism charted and tracked by physicians, both Terran and Cygnan. The media descended upon the family in a full-blown feeding frenzy whenever Shiiko did anything as fascinating as losing a baby tooth. **

**Poor Dee – then NDFG Head of Security – had routinely rousted the paparazzi from the Mansion's hedgerows with a cattle prod. Confiscating their cameras and crushing the contents with her large fists, the big Cygnan also occasionally threw in deep and formidable growls as an extra-added fillip. In later years, Akana had taken care of the news helicopters that invaded the Mansion's airspace with her favorite pulse cannon. Indeed; even threats of litigation by the media were handled with the business end of an AK-47 automatic pulse rifle with attachable rocket launcher.**

**In spite of all this attention, Shiiko's disposition remained sweet. Always beautiful and loving to her parents and family, she'd similarly impressed an Australian graduate student with those qualities of late, and was now engaged to be married. Since her half-sister Biko now ran the family zaibatsu, Shiiko encountered no difficulty in joining the NDFG's Aerospace Division as an executive trainee. **

**It went without saying that her father spent hours counseling her about the secrets to success in business, as he had done in his oldest daughter's case. The man could be overbearing without a doubt; but Shiiko came to truly believe that in matters of corporate governance and strategy, Father did know best.**

**XXXXX**

**Aysha's thoughts now drifted to Mitsuko, her seventh child. Highly talented in mathematics, she'd recently earned her doctorate in Portal Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge in Oxford, England (having rewritten the school's ludicrously inaccurate Terran textbooks as her dissertation project). It was fortunate that she'd dropped her old habit of breaking into whoops of laughter whenever her parents so much as held hands. On the other hand, she no longer showed any interest in following the Path of the Amazon, either. Perhaps one habit left with the other. **

**Both Shiiko and Mitsuko had spent several summer vacations training on Themyscira Island. Aysha had even expressed hope to General Phillipus that both might heed the call of the warrior she'd awakened within them years before. She persistently clung to the hope that they would get around to being the space warriors they'd been destined to become. She supposed that they had to get those foolish Terran careers out of their systems first. **

**_Ah well. _****Their mother would have to wait and see.**

**Little thumb-sucking Kazushi, now 20 years old, had surprised both parents. Always a shy child overshadowed by her two older sisters and the even older Cygnettes, Kazi now lived on the continent of Cygnus Major on the Homeworld. She had joined the Great Motherists (their doctrine now more moderate due to the absence of the conniving Chief Priestess Vipsania Parsua) in their pet project – the restoration of the Temple of Kir Azenath. **

**The girl had initially found Mur Sejanus cold and desolate, but had been warmed in her heart by the knowledge that she would have a hand in bringing back the ancient capital of Bashtorethi, the Azure City, and the temple once erected by her distant ancestor, Kir Azenath the Cherished One. It hadn't hurt that Kazi's choice had also delighted Queen Zazen'lda, who often spent time digging, sieving, scanning, and otherwise getting her own hands dirty at the famed archaeological site in the High Desert.**


	2. Chapter 2: The Daitokuji Zaibatsu

**CHAPTER 2: The Daitokuji Zaibatsu**

**_My twins,_**** Aysha now thought dreamily. ****_Two for the price of one. My poor Hikaru was so exhausted after their birth! As if he'd delivered them himself! _**

**She now shook her head, baffled as always by the mysteries of the masculine mind.**

**XXXXX**

**As children, Azia and Aria's sole goal in life was to make nuisances of themselves. They routinely disassembled every mechanical and electrical device the Mansion held (including the security system, which brought her former starship comrade and present-day chief of corporate security Dee to tears) just to see how it worked. Later, their interest in physiography and geology outweighed their compulsion to dismember communications devices, electric blanket controls, and grandfather clocks. **

**After graduating from the Graviton City High School for Girls, the twins had lived with members of the Ausean Tribe, who lived on the Grape Cluster Islands in the Homeworld's Southern Ocean. The twins wanted to pursue the ongoing scientific research of Mt. Zitu, the Auseans' holy mountain. **

**Usually reserved for a ****_Tadispuk_**** or Rite of Passage for Cygnan girls, a hike to its summit was quite dangerous and not everybody made it back home. Due to its elevation, the top of the mountain was covered a year-round cap of snow despite its proximity to the Cygnan equator. The mountain had called to the two half-Terran girls because three weather systems swirled around its summit, often creating spectacularly bad weather conditions. **

**Aysha now recalled sending both girls to a place in the United States called "Mt. Washington New Hampshire", or something like that. She learned only later, while enjoying her girls' excited prattling about their scientific adventures, that she had sent them to the site of this world's worst weather. Winds of over 230 miles per hour had been recorded on its summit over a hundred years ago, and more Terrans had died climbing Mt. Washington than Mt. Everest. Azi and Ari's serious study of Mt. Zitu had been a foregone conclusion. **

**She had so enjoyed watching her mischievous girls grow into young women fascinated by the interaction among wind, water, and stone! A day hadn't passed since their leave-taking that their mother didn't miss them.**

**Sixteen-year-old Athenia had been her last daughter. She had so impressed the adults around her with her obvious intelligence that after the expected battery of tests had been run, she had been officially declared a genius. **

**It became obvious to her parents that the curriculum offered by the Graviton City High School for Girls failed to offer their daughter sufficient challenge (Athenia frequently ended up tutoring her tutors), so they encouraged her to apply for early admission to Harvard University, once again in the United States. That esteemed fountain of knowledge accepted her into their freshman class without hesitation. **

**Athenia had found the academics boring, but enjoyed the Harvard Square anime shops and the many stores that sold goddess jewelry. The managers of these establishments were always delighted to wait on this handsome half-alien, half-Japanese girl. She had unlimited spending money, after all!**

**XXXXX**

**This left the former Captain Napolipolita to contemplate the miracle she and Hikaru called their only son. **

**Kir Azenath of the House of Napolipolita (known as Hikiri in Graviton City) was his daddy's eye-apple. He was a fourteen-year-old student at the city's private high school for boys and was doing well enough. **

**At age ten, he had thrilled his mother by telling her of his desire to learn the warrior arts; however - because he was a male - she hadn't known what to do with him. She certainly couldn't send him to the Homeworld or to Themyscira Island. **

**Ultimately, it had been the boy's half-sister Alana who saved the day, securing training opportunities for him in the Thessalonikan Space Command under the tutelage of her father, Commander Atola. During his parents' occasional visits to see him, his mother always took pains to ensure that she and Atola never occupied the same room at the same time. Kir had thought this strange, but thought it best not to inquire. **

**_Not that I would go for that kakamatandis _****(an untranslatable Cygnan swear) ****his mother now mused. ****_I just didn't want to see Hikaru's blood pressure go up any higher than it already was! _**

**In addition to his vast family, Kir grew up with other loving souls around him, educating and protecting him. Two prominent and esteemed Cygnans, Queen Zazen'lda and ****_Kollok-Matram_**** (Chief Council-Mother) Sempra Vigilantia, had learned about the boy's tremendous future as a Cygnan hero from Earth's Delphic Oracle. In particular, Sempra Vigilantia – whom his mother called The Revenger - had spent her life safeguarding Kir and his entire family as her moral obligation to the All-Highest One. **

**Vigilantia also saw to it that Kir's training was both complete and thorough. To hone Hikiri's psychic and spiritual gifts, both Queen and Revenger had delivered him over to trusted members of the Nasamonian Tribe during the summer of his twelfth year. It was there he learned to listen to the spirit within, and to travel the cosmos with his mind rather than his body. His father had actually cried when Hikiri had left for the Homeworld to acquire these skills. This had deeply touched his mother's heart, and that knowledge had made the boy happy. **

**He'd heard that when his parents had first met, they had been like slowly circling animals preparing to fight. Both had coveted what the other possessed, and mutual trust was light-years away. At age 8, Kir had been shocked to learn at school that his father had actually shot down his mother's ship. Not that this had been any secret in Graviton City! After all, the litigation that followed the incident had dragged on for nearly ten years. However, this was not a topic of discussion in the Mansion, and Hikiri knew better than to ask. It was just as well, because there were portions of that story that his parents preferred to keep under wraps.**

**He'd learned only in his early teen years that his mother had given up completely after her ship was irretrievably damaged. Played out and heartbroken over the loss of her family, she had attempted slow suicide with alcohol. It was true that her old friend Dee had tried to protect her, but no power on Earth can keep a drink away from an alcoholic who wants to drink. **

**It had both shocked and hurt Hikiri that many Gravitonians had actually found his mother's illness funny. It certainly didn't sound like fun to him.**

**XXXXX**

**Bit by bit, Hikiri had pieced together the intriguing story of his parents' courtship. His oldest sister Biko had gone to his daddy with the information that Napolipolita had been not only a pilot but also a navigator and engineer. She hadn't done so out of the goodness of her heart, of course. Biko hadn't cared a fig about Napolipolita or any of those other space amazons, for that matter. She did it only because C-ko had asked her to.**

**Hikiri had also learned that his daddy had gone to his future mama with a business proposition. Upon her acceptance, he had tossed her into a treatment center, promising her that if she could build his company a light-speed vehicle he would ensure that she would see her girls again. Happily, her sobriety had stuck, although it was tremendously hard work for her. **

**XXXXX**

**Since the death of Biko's mother nearly two decades before, Hikaru Daitokuji had considered women mere distractions from his primary purpose in life - namely, making as much money as possible in as short a period of time as possible, and damn the ethics.**

**At first, Daitokuji had watched her transformation with only the bottom line in mind. To everyone's astonishment (including his own), he began to feel something more for the fallen alien warrior he'd hurt so badly. He had found himself inventing excuses to visit his Department of Strategic Planning, just to see her. **

**The cessation of drinking had brought back Aysha's old "can-do" attitude. It had delighted Daitokuji to visit his top-secret construction hangar one day only to find the Cygnan crawling out from under her pet project with tools in hand, her expensive beige suit dusted with carbon and her wealth of long shaggy hair haphazardly tied back with a length of black coaxial cable. What she had said to him that day was destined to become one of his fondest memories. **

"**I have a joke for you, Daitokuji," she had said. **

**She had never told him a joke before. And why should she? There was little in her life back then to make her laugh.**

**Intrigued yet hesitant, he asked her what it was. **

"**Do you know how porcupines make love?"**

**Surprised, Hikaru shook his head.**

"**Very carefully," she had replied, shoving him out of her way on her way to the exit. **

**The punch she'd simultaneously delivered to his left shoulder had nearly knocked him over. It had taken a full month for the bruise to disappear.**

"**Damn," he had whispered in an awestruck voice as he had brushed the carbon powder from his Italian-cut suit. **

**XXXXX**

**Kir's parents had been very much like porcupines, once upon a time. To the astonishment, ridicule, and general disapproval of the world, they had fallen in love, married, and had all those children who'd now grown up and left home. Slowly, their respective rough edges had softened, and now the alien soldier and the Terran industrialist looked forward to growing old together. **

"**How do you feel about moving to Tahiti?" Daitokuji had asked her, several months before.**

"**How do you feel like moving to the Outer Rim?" she had fired back.**

"**Ha-ha! She's so funny!"**

**Napolipolita had grown thoughtful. "Old man, don't you dare die before me." **

"**Since you're twelve years younger than I am, that may not be a promise I can keep."**

"**While I'm on the subject, giving up sex could be hazardous to your health!"**

"**Why? Will I have a heart attack from lack of exercise?"**

"**No. I will kill you."**

"**Ha-ha! She's so funny!"**

**XXXXX**

**In spite of their jokes around the subject, Aysha worried about her husband's health. She had embarked on a quest to make sure her elderly husband took his vitamins and medicine, worked out, ran laps, and visited his physician, chiropractor, and dietician. **

**She had even suggested he make an appointment to see her old nemesis Dr. Stellamaris at the Junko Daitokuji Memorial Hospital, but it was there that he drew the line.**

"**Do I look Cygnan to you?" he had asked her.**


	3. Chapter 3: Requiem Aeternam

**CHAPTER 3: REQUIEM AETERNAM**

**Napolipolita's early morning reverie came to its natural conclusion when she smelled bacon coming from the lower floor of the wing. Like her daughters, she loved bacon. No one knew the reason, and no one frankly cared. Only bacon would get her out of bed.**

**Stretching her legs once more – that left hip was probably going to be a problem – she rolled over to her left and embraced her husband, whose back faced her. She gave him a hug, as she always did. **

"**Brrrr!" she said, rubbing his upper arm to warm it. "You're so cold, Hikaru-sama! You should have told me to shut that window – "**

**She waited for his answer. **

**And waited two more seconds. **

**And two more.**

**Funny, how one's mind worked! She knew very well how silly it was to feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. **

"**What? You thought I was dead? Good Lord, Ayshalita! What a worrier you are!"**

**She hesitantly ran her fingers over his neck until they found his carotid artery. **

**She waited two more seconds. **

**And two more.**

"**Hikaru-sama?" she said, more loudly this time. **

**A thud of sick dread shot through her body as her mind began to accept what her fingers had discovered."**

**Hikaru?" she shrieked in a voice hoarse with fright. **

**O**

**!**

**Dear Holy Mother Goddess ****_NO _**

**!**

**And then, she turned him over.**

**XXXXXX**

**Her screams had reached the ears of every living human soul in the Mansion. She had kept on screaming until Dr. Stellamaris arrived, still dressed in her nightgown and peignoir, to inject her with enough tranquilizers to drop a Terran horse.**

**XXXXXX**

**Efficient as always, members of the household staff busied themselves making the appropriate calls to Alpha Cygni – Cambridge, Massachusetts – Jupiter Station. Security kept away the hordes of reporters with all their media claptrap. Daitokuji's Directors of Development and Commerce had stepped in to ensure that the Mansion wouldn't be immediately engulfed by a platoon of estate lawyers. They'd both had their differences and corporate pushy-pushies with Mrs. Daitokuji over the years, but - by God in Heaven - they weren't monsters!**

**The children had stood in stunned silence until the ambulance left. Almah Stellamaris, bless her kind heart, had gathered them together and told them that their father had died peacefully in his sleep and that he had felt no pain. She didn't have the heart to tell them that it looked like their mother was already falling to pieces. Such news would only have brought them further agony, and she wouldn't have intentionally inflicted any more pain upon them – not for the world. **

**Almah had taken Hikiri outside and bundled him right into the little hop-ship she'd used for her hasty trip to the Mansion. "I know how your society punishes males for crying! In my opinion, that's so wrong. Sit here with me a while, and cry for your father to your heart's content." **

**The boy had done so, gratefully. He'd clung so tightly to the kind woman who'd brought him into the world that he left bruises. **

**Poor Hikiri had been in his father's arms, or at his father's side, nearly every day of his life. Whatever would become of him now?**

**XXXXXX**

**No one supposed that Hikaru Teri Daitokuji's funeral would be anything but a nightmare for his wife. The entire clan hovered around her; sometimes she knew they were there, and sometimes she didn't. Almah Stellamaris had taken mercy on her and had given her a heavy dose of sedatives right before they left for ****St. Joan of Arc's Chapel****.**

**The crack troops from Princess E-ko's Kollya Stragaesh stood at every entrance, screening all participants who approached them this cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. Commander Alia Napolipolita had even arranged for the temporary use of Central Astro Agency global positioning satellites to ensure that nothing even remotely resembling a camera would be admitted into the funeral.**

**Unfortunately, even the Cygnans hadn't anticipated the ingenuity of a stringer for the ****National Enquirer**** whose brother-in-law had been CIA. **

**And the emphasis was indeed on "had been" – the gentleman had been suspected of espionage and summarily tossed out on his ear. **

"**Take this," he had told his brother-in-law, shoving an inch-long sight recorder the size and thickness of a razorblade into his hand. "Frig 'em all." **

**This enterprising reporter snapped about one hundred and eighty photographs of the funeral and all its attendees, scooping all competition and providing the ****Enquirer ****with enough material for a special supplement that sold like hotcakes. **

**In a gesture that had enraged the Cygnan Consulate, a Pulitzer Prize had been awarded for a photograph of the widow clinging to her sister-in-law. It was a touching photo indeed, in which Aysha's black hat and veil hung askew and both women stood weeping like children. The Cygnans had filed a formal protest, which ultimately failed. It was the Terrans' unanimous belief that the photograph's merit as a historical document outweighed any adverse impact on the aliens and their ilk. **

**This hadn't surprised the Cygnans, or the Napolipolita-Daitokuji family either. **

**Such was life on this boring mud ball called Earth.**

**XXXXXX**

**The former Captain and her best friend, Deesha Akana Dakina-Azawa (formerly known as Spy D), sat together in the back of HIKI-1 on its mournful way from the cemetery. **

"**You goddamn pig," Aysheia shrieked. "You goddamn pig who won't even help me!"**

**Deesha sat next to her, sobbing into her large hands. She had not been intelligent enough to know what to do, and there was certainly no one around whom she could ask. Aysha had double-checked that the soundproof barrier between the passenger and chauffeur's compartments was firmly in place, and had hung her funeral veil over it just to make sure.**

"**Do you want me to die? I swear to the Mother that I will kill myself. I'll go under my bathroom sink and swallow drain cleaner!"**

**At this, Dee's sobs became shrieks. "You can't! You have so many who love you, and – "**

**Gripping her hair in her black-gloved hands, the ex-captain shrieked, "You don't get it, you dumb bitch! I'm pushing the outer limits of middle age and let's face facts here - Terran men never found me attractive in the first place!"**

**The hapless Dee said nothing. She knew from personal experience that the men of Earth could be cruel.**

"**The only one who ever did was my Hikaru-sama! The only one who ever loved me here was my Hikaru-sama," the widow sobbed. "He is dead! Love is dead for me!"**

**Dee continued to sob.**

"**YOU sure as Avernus hate me, you rotten stinking excuse for a friend," the green-headed woman moaned. "All I need is one little drink!" **

**Dee winced. The ex-captain took a swing at her, which fortunately didn't connect. "Get the hell out of my car if you won't help me!"**

**Dee looked at her in horror. While Aysha had always considered Dee her protector, Dee had always believed the converse was true. The thought of losing her lifelong friend tore at her heart. It didn't help Deesha's deteriorating state of mind to have Hikaru Daitokuji's chief mourner call her every filthy name she could think of in Cygnan, Anatolian, Japanese, and Thessalonikan.**

"**Get out!" Napolipolita shrieked, trying to shove her friend's bulk against the door. "I hate your ugly ass! Don't ever expect to see me again! Go tell your own whelps that you helped kill their godmother! You do that, you oversized, ugly bitch!" Without warning and with all her strength, she lunged at Dee, fingernails at the ready to lacerate her face. **

**The Cygnan ex-spy was big, but she was also fast. She had both wrists firmly clenched in her ham-sized hands within seconds. "Don't make me hurt you," Dee sobbed. "And I will. You're not yourself. You're – out of your mind." She flinched as her former commander first spat in her face, then sank her teeth into Dee's right hand.**

**The outrageous act and the sudden pain took Dee off guard. Her own panic became a physical presence; causing her blood to boil and her fear transform itself into rage within seconds. **

**Predictably, her old Shakanar training kicked in. Wrenching her childhood friend's thin frame under her huge left arm, she began to bore away with the forefingers of her right hand into a pressure point on the woman's right temple.**

**It was lucky for both of them that the chauffeur had chosen that moment to screech to a halt behind a driver who'd suddenly decided to take his own sweet time making a turn. First jolted, then recoiling, Dee came to her senses and released Aysha, who had already blacked out. **

"**Oh may the Mother forgive me!" screamed Deesha, clutching Napolipolita - as limp as one of her daughter's rag dolls - against her breast. "Damn my soul to Avernus if I hurt you!"**

**The new widow retched miserably, gasping for air. Dee stroked her disheveled hair in a soothing gesture, her heart turning over when Aysha flinched at the touch of her hand. Napolipolita opened her slit-swollen eyes. "Then help me," she whispered hoarsely. "Please help me, Deesha. I'm in agony." **

**Dee burst into fresh tears. "Don't make me help you kill yourself," she wailed. **

"**If you don't help me, I'll have a stranger buy it for me," Napolipolita threatened through a throatful of gravel. "You don't know how I feel. Oh Holy Mother! My sweet Hikaru-sama is dead!" **

**Unconsciously, Dee smoothed her old friend's back to calm her, as if she had been one of her children. "I'll do it," she moaned. "May the Mother of All help me! I will - but only if you promise on your children's souls that that you'll stop when we get through all this."**

"**Of course. Anything you say," Aysha whispered. **

**As if seeing it for the first time, she cradled Dee's bloody hand tenderly - her shame beyond expression – for a little while before she broke down entirely.**

**XXXXXX**

**During the long ride back to the Mansion that terrible day, the two women clinging desperately to one another did so with the knowledge that losing your lifemate brought agony beyond endurance, and that having one good friend in your life was the best you could expect in this world. **

**Or any other world, for that matter.**


	4. Chapter 4: Lacrimosa

**CHAPTER 4: LACRIMOSA**

**Thus it came to pass that after the funeral service and unbeknownst to anyone, Aysha Napolipolita-Daitokuji holed herself up in her bedroom with six bottles of Stolichnaya and three of an American liqueur called Southern Comfort.**

"**Let's see how well it lives up to its name," the defeated woman said to herself, avoiding her own reflection in her full-length bedroom mirror as she poured herself a knock.**

**The drink Aysha took had been her first in decades. Her stomach ungraciously sent it back up again. **

**Resolute, and now remembering a few of her own old tricks, she swallowed a mouthful of mineral oil, counted to ten, and tossed down the second. **

**Its heat bloomed in her belly like a black rose. **

**_So it is true what they say in the Fellowship,_ she thought to herself, _once you pick up again you may never be able to put it back down._**

**By the time Kir and his older sisters forced the lock and lifted their mother from the polished parquet floor, she had fallen off the wagon with a vengeance.**

**XXXXX**

**The mid-afternoon sun fell upon a beige throw rug that lay on the living room floor in the Satoru home. It was nearly covered with colorful toys, appropriate for children under the age of five.**

"**How is your mother?" Commander Hagio Triado Atola (Ret.) said to his daughter.**

**Alana, diapering her third child, sighed. "She's destroyed." **

"**Shall I go see her?"**

"**Suit yourself," Alana replied. She handed little Diktynna Napolipolita-Satoru to her grandfather. "You'll be here for her Bikreet, right?"**

"**Certainly. There isn't a lot for a retired commander to do these days."**

"**See Ma if you want. You won't like it."**

"**Isn't her friend Dee there to help her?"**

"**Well, you know Dee," Alana answered, shaking her head. "Her heart is too soft to allow her to say the things Ma really needs to hear." The young woman ran her hands through her knee-length hair. "Not that it would do any good. She listens to no one these days. She's in tough shape, you know."**

"**Drinking?" **

"**Yes. We've admitted her to three treatment centers since Daddy died. The booze has really done a number on her. They say that the disease progresses inside you, even if you stop taking alcohol into your body." Her lip quivered.**

"**Talk to me, my child."**

"**I'm – sorry, Father. But I'm tired of talking about it. I've screamed, I've pleaded, I've begged, and I've prayed. Nothing I do does any good. Nothing does any good, for that matter. One treatment center threw her out. She started drinking the same day she was discharged from the other two."**

**Atola could only shake his head ruefully.**

"**Turns out that Daddy was the only thing keeping her from the bottle all those years."**

"**I see," her father said quietly.**

"**Now that he's gone, she wants to follow him, and there's nothing I can do to stop her. Do you have any idea how terrible that is?"**

"**I'm so sorry." Atola enveloped her with his muscular arms in a hug. Although he'd never come to terms with a sober Napolipolita, he had been grateful for it, at least for his daughter's sake.**

"**And Father - do you know what frightens me more?"**

**The Thessalonikan shook his shaggy head, his heart sore.**

"**That I'm running out of tears."**

**Both stood silent for a few moments. **

"**Well, my child. All we can do is stay positive and hope that something – or someone – intervenes."**

**Both stood quiet, lost in their thoughts. Atola shook his shaggy head. **

"**And as for me – well, I expect that if I paid her a visit right now, she'd probably knock my block off." **

**Alana gave him a bitter smile. "She hasn't got the strength," she replied. **

**XXXXX**

**Aysheia no longer had any constraints upon her behavior. **

**Her husband was dead (he, who had always been so proud of her sobriety!), her children were grown, and she had shamelessly manipulated her best friend into becoming her supplier. She refused to see or speak to anyone else. ****In the ensuing months, the desperately unhappy Cygnan relearned every trick she'd ever forgotten about getting her hands on enough alcohol to anesthetize her grief. **

**Two things were at least partially responsible for her terrifying bender. **

**The first was that she was very rich. **

**The second was that she was very wealthy. **

**Finding an empathetic gardener or maid willing to earn the equivalent of two months' pay for sneaking a bottle to the Lady of the House was no problem at all. **

**The Napolipolita-Daitokuji children despaired. Most of them had never seen their mother drunk, and this dreadful reality only made their grief harder to bear. **

**All of them knew that when their mother was in pain, she hid. She hid behind high collars, behind dark glasses, and behind long shaggy bangs which if arranged properly could cover half her face. They hadn't realized that she could also hide behind the locked double-doors of her bedroom, losing her soul as she grieved her dead lifemate. **

**According to a maid who'd had a chance to look around before Aysha threw her out, the grieving widow lay in bed all day crying, drinking, and clinging to Hikaru's old fur-collar smoking jacket because it still smelled like him. **

**Aysheia had also decided to stop eating, unceremoniously tossing the silver trays bearing her breakfast, lunch, and dinner off her bedroom balcony and onto the Mansion's carefully manicured lawn. The local crows had figured this out long before the woman's family had, and established themselves a stakeout position nearby at the appropriate times.**

"**That's so suicidal," Almah Stellamaris had whispered to Alia. "The damage to her system from the alcohol will only be worsened. Has she lost her appetite?"**

**Alia – veteran of her mother's binges since childhood – shook her head. "She's hungry, all right, but that's beside the point. She told me once that you can get drunk faster if there's nothing in your stomach to soak it up."**

**Almah had been horrified. Even though she was a physician, she herself only took a sip of wine here or there and didn't understand. She had been even more horrified when Dee finally confessed that she'd brought in bottles for her former Captain until her conscience could no longer bear it. **

**XXXXX**

**These two factors had made Almah mad enough to have the gardeners place a stepladder up to the second-story balcony so that she could avoid the doors entirely. She had kicked off her shoes, hoisted her skirt, and up she'd gone.**

"**Get the hell out of my room," Aysha had moaned.**

**Almah knelt on the dirty floor, bending over her physically and emotionally ill patient. "You're wearing nothing but your underpants and you're on the floor right now, lying in your own vomit. Did you know that?" **

**When Napolipolita tried to cover her face with her hands, Almah -–though uncomfortable in this painful role - pulled them away. **

"**I am not leaving, not through the window, not through the door. Furthermore, I'm not leaving here until I check your vital signs and dose you with enough medication to keep your liver from rupturing. Frankly, I no longer give a damn if you like it or not. You are dying in front of my eyes. You'll have to go kill yourself under someone else's watch, because you won't do it under mine!" **

**Aysha had allowed Stellamaris to perform these little tasks only because she was becoming too weak to drink. The physician and prayerteacher steadfastly returned to the Mansion every day to inject her with vitamins, or perform less routine tasks such as suturing her patient's head and hand lacerations when she'd mistaken her full-length mirror for her bathroom door. **

**Almah concluded that this situation had to come to an end, and soon.**


	5. Chapter 5: Conturbatio

**CHAPTER 5: CONTURBATIO**

**Stellamaris called a little Council of War, and sat in the living room with Napolipolita's family and friends. "Who among us has enough clout to scare some sense into her?" Almah asked them.**

"**She doesn't fear disapproval, because the one whose approval she wanted the most is dead," Biko said. "The rest of us might as well be."**

"**Not even my Hideo or the Magamis here can convince her to stay sober," Dee snuffled.**

"**I won't let Ma die," Akana whispered, her face contorted with grief and hurt. "She's my Ma and I love her."**

"**I think what the Doctor means is that love won't save her, Aki," Alia told her in a soothing voice. **

**The sobbing Akana clung to her like a baby, even though she stood half a foot taller than her eldest sister. Her tears were all the more bitter because she had often clung to her mother in this same way.**

"**The treatment centers have more or less blacklisted her," Alana reported solemnly. "They said that some alcoholics were 'constitutionally incapable' of getting sober and it looked to them like she was one of them."**

"**It doesn't matter anyway, Sis," Alia replied. "Even when they discharged her and sent her home, Ma would be anywhere from moderately tickled to thoroughly tanked even before she stepped out of the limo."**

"**And how in the hell did that happen?" Akana said angrily. "I have no idea where she got the booze!" The devastated Dee flinched, but only Almah Stellamaris saw.**

**Arisa rubbed her tired eyes. "Her friends in the Fellowship have tried their best, but tell me that they can't make her stop drinking."**

**Shinobu Daitokuji had nodded in assent. Aysha's family had been delighted that the flighty fashion designer had rallied to her sister-in-law's side and had come today to help out. It was Shinobu's secret that she was doing so to atone for her own hatred of, and cruelty toward, her own father. He had been a drunk, and his disease – like Aysha's – had made him quite unlovable.**

"**Everyone who knew my brother and welcomed them as a couple has turned their backs on her. I know from personal experience how suddenly-single people get dropped from invitation lists." **

**Indeed, the elite of Graviton City especially had no room in their hearts for a distraught and severely depressed widow.**

"**Aysha was so helpful to us when Mother died," Biko's Aunt Shini continued, shaking her head. The lines on her face told the world that the heartbreaks she'd caused during her many broken marriages had enacted a heavy toll on her as well. "It breaks my heart to see her this way."**

"**And my Captain was so grateful for your support when Theram Avaris died," Dee said, right before she realized that Shinobu had been sweet on Aysha's elderly father.**

"**Oh Dee. For God's sake!" Biko snapped.**

"**I'm sorry!" the big woman gasped, her hand shooting up to cover her mouth. Hideo noticed the tears rolling down her face, and squeezed her other hand in comfort. It seemed that all poor Dee did these days was cry.**

"**She won't even let her Princess come into that room," Eiko sighed. "Well, I suppose that's just as well. All she'd do is bawl, and people's nerves are already at the breaking point as it is." The redheaded woman looked around the room at the Fourth Princess's loyal subjects. "No disrespect intended."**

"**None taken," Atina said.**

"**We all care about her and want to help her in any way we can," Diana Magami - known to the world at large as Wonder Woman - sighed. "But let's face facts. I could wrestle her to the ground and restrain her, and it still won't make her stop drinking!"**

"**She wouldn't even let me come into the room," Shinobu said quietly.**

"**She won't because she's ashamed," Alia calmly replied. **

"**There are none so blind as those who will not see," Biko said.**

"**What the hell does that mean?" Akana shouted, standing to her full height. **

"**It's not that Ma won't see," Hikiri said, pulling gently at Aki's shirttail.**

"**She can't see," Arisa quietly added.**

"**I ought to break your fat ass just the same," Aki growled at her stepsister.**

"**Stop it," Eiko said. "Just stop it."**

"**This isn't helping," Diana Magami added.**

**Almah gestured toward Biko. "I think the stress in this house has everyone's nerves on edge. Everybody knows full well that Biko loves her stepmother very much, and would heal her if she could."**

**Biko was near tears herself. "That's right. And isn't it bad enough that I've lost my father, Akana?**

**Suddenly mortified, Aki sat back down. "Sorry," she mumbled. "But just for the record, he was our father, too."**

"**I know," Biko replied. "I know. I didn't mean to sound uncaring."**

**Mitsuko sighed. "We all feel so – well, helpless. I'm surprised we haven't ripped each other's heads off by now."**

**Hikiri turned to Dr. Stellamaris, his winsome face a mask of sorrow. He adored his mother, and knew more than anyone there how dearly his father had loved her; Hikiri had been his eye-apple, after all. "Is our mother going to die?" he asked her.**

"**She will, if we can't find someone to scare some sense into her."**

**No one spoke for a little while.**

"**So – there's no one, Dakitah?" Deesha snuffled, still unintentionally holding the kindly Hideo's hand in a vice-grip.**

**Almah sat motionless, her brow wrinkled in concentration. **

"**Doctor?" Dee inquired.**

**The others began to look at the Beneshandran, the silence stretching out and becoming uncomfortable.**

"**Almah - are you all right?" Hideo asked.**

**Without another word, the Good Doctor rose from her chair and sprinted from the room.**

**XXXXX**

**Two hours later, she was in her own bedroom in her own home with her own lifemate, relieved (if only for the next few hours) of responsibility for curing the incurable and bringing comfort to the inconsolable. **

"**I'm so grateful to the All-Highest One that help is on its way," Almah said; actually calm enough to finally think of getting some sleep. **

"**Who did you call?" asked her husband Roy.**

"**The Revenger, that's who. I don't know why I didn't think of her in the first place."**

"**Ah, the Big Guns! The Cap's always been in total awe of her, and for a lot of good reasons. Sensible decision, Almah. The woman wears serenity like a cloak."**

"**The Kollok-Matram's last words to me were, and I quote: 'Just keep her in one place until I get there'. She didn't even say goodbye."**

"**Brrrr," Roy replied, fake-shivering. "That even scares me!"**

"**And I hope that Grand Admiral Sempra Vigilantia will scare the living hell out of Aysha Daitokuji!"**

"**AL-mah!" her husband chided, chuckling. **


	6. Chapter 6: Dies Irae

**CHAPTER 6: DIES IRAE**

**It was late the following afternoon when the great Kollok-Matram, or Council Mother, Sempra Vigilantia arrived at the Daitokuji Mansion. She and Almah conferred briefly before she entered the living room where the patient's family and friends sat assembled. Nodding her greeting to its residents, she immediately asked directions to Napolipolita's bedroom. When the tearful young Azia offered to accompany her, the woman with the luminous gold and silver eyes graciously declined. **

"**This is my task and my obligation," she said in her soothing voice. "I need to be alone with her, and I ask your indulgence not to interrupt me for any reason."**

"**We understand," Biko replied, getting up to hug her little brother Hikiri. **

**The two had always been close; she'd given him the nickname "Little Sweet Gherkin" on account of his green hair when he was a baby. Of course, now that he was a teenager, such terms of endearment embarrassed him to death, but he seemed happy enough to return Biko's hug.**

"**Is there anything you need?" Diana said.**

**The Revenger smiled. "Only your indulgence. Remember your promise, no matter what you hear." **

**Grand Admiral Sempra Vigilantia then turned and walked up the flight of stairs to the second floor, her bearing resolute and her unruly mane of silver and white hair almost ethereal in the light of the chandelier hanging above it.**

**XXXXX**

**After watching the Revenger make her determined way to their mother's room, Akana plopped onto the couch next to Hikiri. **

**She gave him a sisterly little shove with her elbow. "****I looked up the word 'poop' in the dictionary and it had your picture under it," Aki said solemnly, staring at the boy with a totally serious expression.**

"**I didn't even know you could read, Pigface," responded Kir Azenath of the House of Napolipolita.**

**Shiiko shot a fist into the air. "I'll give you five yen on the skinny ugly one!"**

"**Which one? They're both skinny and ugly!" Kazushi inquired.**

**The adults in the room smirked, knowing that this vulgar little _pas-de-deux_ was helping to ground the anxious Napolipolita-Daitokuji children. However, that knowledge didn't make it any easier for them to keep from laughing themselves into convulsions. Diana looked at Clark, observing that he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from cracking up. He didn't return her gaze, afraid of catching her eye and having both of them collapsing into hysterics.**

**After all, it was their duty to present themselves as proper role models to the younger set. And – more importantly – there was only so much misery one household could take. Clark now prayed that there would be plenty of smiles at the Mansion once the Captain regained her health.**

**If she didn't die first.**

**XXXXX**

**To say that Napolipolita's entire family jumped half a foot when Vigilantia kicked down her bedroom door was possibly the understatement of the decade. **

**Hikiri immediately leapt up and ran for the steps until Atina reminded him of their collective promise. Confused, embarrassed, and sick at heart over his father's death and his mother's disintegration, the boy scratched his spiky hair and returned to the couch, sitting down without a word. Akana immediately seized his head and gave him a noogie. **

"**I'm great and you stink," she declared. **

"**My Little Sweet Gherkin," Biko said, chucking him under his chin. **

**This managed to get a smile out of him. Several of the anxious family members also smiled, and relaxed a little.**

"**Great Mother," Deesha prayed, hugging Azia with one arm and Aria with the other. "Please watch over this house."**

"**Amen," Diana whispered.**

**XXXXX**

**The sudden implosion of her set of double doors had at least gotten the good widow's attention. ****She immediately hid in the bathroom shower stall; afraid of whatever it was her family had sent to terrorize her. Vigilantia strode in like Doom, her boots crunching the shattered boards into still smaller splinters, and looked around the bedroom proper for Aysheia. It was obvious that no household staff had touched the place for weeks.**

**What disturbed her more than the discarded bottles and overturned furniture was the realization that Hikaru Daitokuji's clothes had been neatly laid out for him, right down to his Italian leather shoes and socks. It looked to Sempra as if the Cygnan had been performing this comforting little task for him every morning since his death, as every flat surface of every piece of furniture in the room was decked out in a different ensemble.**

**It would not be in accordance with her duty to give in to emotion now. **

**In a chilling voice, her eerie gold and silver eyes blazing, Grand Admiral Sempra Vigilantia roared, "YOU HAVE ANGERED OUR QUEEN, NAPOLIPOLITA! AND NOW YOU MUST ATONE!"**

**A wasted figure shambled out of the adjoining bathroom. Her nightgown was splotched, her hair hung in dank strings, and her eyes held such pain that the Kollok-Matram nearly gasped out loud. **

**"What have I done?" Napolipolita moaned while biting her fist, still bandaged from her little accident with the mirror.**

**It took every ounce of will to keep Vigilantia from throwing her arms around the scarecrow before her in a healing hug. Instead, her dreadful voice filled the room, causing the green-haired woman to cover her thin face with both hands.**

"**YOU HAVE RENEGED IN YOUR PROMISE TO THE MOTHER OF THE SWANS TO LOCATE AND RETURN HER LOST SON, THE TWIN BROTHER OF C-KO KOTOBUKI! HAVE YOU BECOME SO ADDLED THAT YOU'VE FORGOTTEN YOUR MISSION? OR IS IT SIMPLY THAT YOU STAND IN DEFIANCE OF OUR BELOVED LADY HIGH JUSTICE OF THE REALM?"**

**When the former captain didn't react, it became apparent to Sempra that her harsh words had only confused the woman. Still maintaining her terrible dignity, she continued nonetheless.**

"**THE DELPHIC ORACLE PROPHESIED THAT YOU WOULD FIND NOT ONLY THE ROYAL PRINCESS, BUT HER TWIN BROTHER THE ROYAL PRINCE. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO FULFILL YOUR PROMISE, BESIDES TURNING YOUR CHILDREN'S LIVES INTO A NIGHTMARE AND YOUR OWN BODY INTO A WALKING RUIN?"**

**Napolipolita leaned against a wall and then crumpled, sliding down to the floor. **

_"_**_My sweet Hikaru died,"_ she whispered, hands still hiding her face.**

**It was then that the Grand Admiral realized she could no longer continue this sham. "I know, Aysha," she said quietly. "I am so sorry, and I am going to help you."**

"**Nobody can help me."**

"**Whether you can be helped or not is of no matter to Her Majesty. She has asked me to bring you to her, and – "**

**The sudden look of terror on Napolipolita's face froze The Revenger's words in her throat. **

"**No. You aren't in trouble. But we must hurry." She held out her hand to the wreck huddled on the expensive parquet floor like a battered child. "My ship leaves in four hours, as Terrans reckon time. Give me your hand. The Queen awaits!" **

**It took the former starship captain several tries before she regained her footing and took a couple of tentative steps toward the Kollok-Matram. **

**"No, stay where you are," Sempra suddenly said. "You're barefoot. There's a mine field of broken glass over here." Then - realizing that Napolipolita wouldn't have cared if her feet had been torn to ribbons, the Revenger strode over and picked up the child of the woman whose death she'd pledged to avenge so years before. She seemed to weigh no more than a bundle of sticks. **

"**You're nothing but a bag of bones," Almah said solemnly. "Stellamaris will give you a nutritious diet, and we'll see what we can do to restore you to sanity." Vigilantia turned toward the shattered hole that was once a set of doors. **

"**I need Dr. Stellamaris up here now," she shouted. Looking her charge over, she added in her clear and commanding voice, "I need a hairdresser and a maid as well. Shinobu Daitokuji, I would appreciate it if you could kindly select a suitable wardrobe for your sister-in-law."**

"**For what?" Hikaru's younger sister inquired on her way up the stairway, hope in her voice.**

"**Interstellar travel. Will someone fill that bathtub with hot water? My hands are full."**

**XXXXX**

**Within ninety minutes Aysha Napolipolita-Daitokuji had been bathed, dressed, perfumed, and otherwise clucked and fussed over - all much to her annoyance. She was still quite drunk and still quite dangerous, mostly to herself.**

"**Stop slapping my hands away, dear, unless you want eyeliner up your nose," Shinobu said.**

"**I'd rather see it up your ass, you _kakamatandula_," Aysha retorted, furious at everyone for everything.**

"**Now, that's more like my old friend!" Diana laughed. "Self-destruction doesn't suit you, my dear alien Sister!"**

"**Why don't you shove that golden lasso up your golden – "**

"**Don't push your luck, now," Diana continued, shaking her finger. "You sometimes forget that I could cold-cock you over the Arctic Circle. Eiko, hand me that silver-backed brush on the vanity table, won't you?"**

**Too defeated to think up a decent _riposte_, Napolipolita took a feeble swing at one of the household maids instead. The poor servant had been trying valiantly trying to get Missus Daitokuji's size 10 foot into a low-heeled pump. **

"**Careful for that cut on her foot!" Almah said. "I'm sure it hurts her as much as it would hurt you." **

"**Ouch!" the ex-captain snarled.**

"**But ma'am!" the hapless maid cried. "I let go of your foot already!"**

"**I wasn't speaking to you!" the Cygnan snarled. "Blunder Woman, or whatever the hell the Terrans call her, is trying to rip every strand of hair out of my head!" **

"**Oh, don't be such a baby," the Amazon fired back. "Bitch and moan, bitch and moan."**

**This caused Napolipolita to burst into tears. **

**Apparently, Diana had misjudged the woman's emotional fragility, and she regretted her fallen-flat joke immediately. "All right, everyone out," she shouted, waving the other women and all their claptrap out of the dark and dirty bedroom. **

**XXXXX**

**When they had gone (downstairs, that is; they couldn't exactly close the door behind them), Eiko's mother took her friend's hand and sat down next to her on the bed.**

"**Honey, you've got to try your best to get through this," Diana said quietly. **

"**You have no idea how I feel," the Cygnan moaned. "I keep rolling over in bed and reaching for him, and he's not there. I keep waiting for him to come home, and he never will."**

**Diana pulled her close and kissed her forehead.**

"**Everything here – this house, this city, this country, this planet - reminds me of him, Diana. He'll never hold me or kiss me or make love to me, ever again. I'll never hear his voice again, or see his face, or feel his touch, not ever again." **

**Aysha reached behind her for Hikaru's robe and held it across her chest for comfort. **

"**You can sit there in judgment of me all you wish, but really now, Diana - how would you deal with it if it was your Clark who was dead?"**

**Napolipolita got her answer in the form of Diana's sudden, hot, and harsh tears.**


	7. Chapter 7: De Profundis

**CHAPTER 7: DE PROFUNDIS**

**Both women wept quietly for the next few minutes, one lost in her grief and the other in her fear. **

**Diana sat on the edge of the bed, desperately trying to regain her composure for her friend's sake. Aysha lay on the bed in a fetal knot, face hidden in Hikaru Daitokuji's best smoking jacket. She would have remained there indefinitely had she not felt a hand smoothing the hair on the back of her head. **

"**Mama?" Hikiri said. **

**She looked up at him, dazed. **

"**Oh," she gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth. She'd been so entombed in her cold sarcophagus of loneliness and grief that she hadn't realized that Hikaru's death had devastated his children as well.**

"**Mama?" the boy said, doing his best to be brave in front of Diana.**

**Napolipolita wrapped her thin arms around her only son, rocking him back and forth. He began to cry. "Oh my sweet baby, forgive me," his mother said. "Please forgive me."**

"**Mama!" he sobbed. "I can hardly bear Father being dead. I won't be able to bear your death as well!"**

**Stung with shame, the ex-captain now felt more arms around her, and looked up into the faces of her daughters. **

"**Come on, Ma," Akana said. "Let's get you ready."**

"**It's a good idea, Ma," Aria added. "Get out of here for a while. Have a little trip." **

**Almah Stellamaris entered the room, hardly able to locate her patient amidst the tangle of arms and the multitude of heads of shaggy green hair. "Come along, now," she said to her former commanding officer. "I have it on good authority that Queen Zazen'lda is looking forward to your visit. She's told me on many occasions that she owes you so much that nothing could ever repay you."**

"**I think she's got that a little twisty," Aysha whispered in response.**

"**I believe that the Queen is correct," came another voice from outside the shattered bedroom doorframe. **

**All looked.**

**There stood Sempra Vigilantia – Member of the Pathfollower Council of Fifteen – Grand Admiral of the Royal Space Navy – Revenger of Alia Napolipolita's death – and lifelong protector of the Alia Napolipolita's family. "What Napolipolita owes, is not to Her Majesty. It isn't even to herself." **

**Aysha disengaged herself from her children's loving arms, and – for the first time since she rolled over that beautiful March morning to find her husband dead beside her – stood up straight and looked Vigilantia in the eye.**

"**She owes it to her mother – to her mother's mother – and all those ancestors before her whose blood runs in her veins," Vigilantia continued. "She owes it to Bacchanalia Napolipolita the Xramcrusher and to Kir Azenath the Cherished One, her own son's namesake. But most of all, she owes it to those who will come after her – the children of her children, and the children of her grandchildren, and the children of her great-grandchildren. " **

**Suddenly appearing behind the Grand Admiral was C-ko Kotobuki, her wide smile at its very highest voltage. "Hi there, Captain," she waved. "I'm glad you're going to get well!"**

"**Our Little Lost Princess," said Alana, her taut shoulders relaxing.**

**Diana gestured toward C-ko, then turned to her suffering friend. "Aysha, just think of the wonderful thing you did! In spite of all your impediments and fears, you managed to restore a princess to her people and to her family. Your Kingdom will never be the same." **

"**Yes," Almah Stellamaris added. "Captain. Don't you remember how the Queen wept with joy when she and her Little Lost Princess were reunited for the first time in sixteen long years?"**

**For the first time since her sweet Hikaru had died, Aysha's lips curved into the slightest of smiles. "Yes, I do," she said. "I do indeed." **

**Vigilantia held out her hand.**

"**Go to her, Ma," Kazushi said quietly.**

"**Go ahead, Ma," Athenia said. "You know for a fact she would never hurt you."**

"**It's all right," Aria added.**

**Holding onto her son's strong right arm and her daughter Akana's strong left one, the former Mrs. Daitokuji took her first hesitant and faltering step to where Sempra Vigilantia waited.**

"**This is your home," Mitsuko said to her mother. "You belong here, whether Daddy is here or not."**

**Kazushi said, "We may have lost him - but we're all still here, aren't we?" **

**Alia reached over and gently pushed her mother's heavy bangs away from her brow. "Don't worry, dear heart. We'll take care of everything, and will be here waiting for you when you come back."**

**Biko Daitokuji now spoke to her. "Cry for my father, but not for too long. He wouldn't like that. He would also want you to be sober - the way you were, and the way you can be again." **

**Napolipolita's grief-clouded eyes now held the first glimmers of hope. **

**Sempra Vigilantia, her eerie eyes full of her own light, gestured toward her. **

"**All here now behold our Aysheia Lisia Napolipolita-Daitokuji. Ambassador to the Royal Court of Themyscira – Captain of Her Majesty's Space Navy – Cap'n to her best friend - Dollface to the man who loved her - and Ma to all her precious children. This woman has been given a great gift, and that is the ability to find that which was lost."**

**Aysheia blinked back tears. While grief and loss had been suffocating her, had it stolen her essence as well?**

"**Before this woman stands what remains of the entrance to her prison," the Grand Admiral said, gesturing at the shattered doorframe. "Aysheia Lisia, little daughter of Alia, Valiant Soul! Pass through it and know freedom again. Let health fill your veins and faith fill your heart. Allow your shattered body to mend, and your sorrowful soul to remember what it was like to feel hope."**

**Another voice now came from behind the Cygnan Princess. "And wherever you go, my Captain, I'll be there beside you – and with my whole family in tow, if you'd have no objection!"**

**Diana turned to the big Leptonian with a smile. "Ah, Deesha. I seem to recall some years ago that you two once tried to convince your future mother-in-law that – "**

" **\- I was really and truly the delicate Japanese flower she'd always wanted for her son," the big woman added, grinning.**

"**And when Aysha made a botch of the Tea Ceremony – " Diana said with a tender smile.**

"**And afterwards, when we sat by the pool – " Dee continued. **

**The faces surrounding the two old friends – from Diana and her daughter Eiko, from Alia to the rest of the Cygnettes, and from Aysha's Earthborn babies, Shiiko to Hikiri - broke into smiles as they listened.**

**The widow cleared her throat, and spoke in a voice hoarse from disuse. "I seem to recall that I had mentioned to you that I was bored, and that finding the Lost Prince seemed like just the thing."**

"**I remember it that way, too."**

"**And so do I," said Diana. **

**"We imagined Princess C-ko's lost little brother as a bull-leaper; one who entertained the crowds jumping over the backs of fighting bulls for sport - lost on some distant planet and not even knowing that he was a prince instead of a bull-leaper, after all." ****Aysha turned to Hikiri, whose face was puffy from weeping. "This is for you, sweet one," she whispered, reaching over and picking up something lying upon what used to be her marriage bed. **

**She draped Hikaru's old robe over the shoulders of his only son. **

**At that moment she came to truly know that her marriage was over, because her lifemate had crossed over to the Summerland without her. **

_**Without her.**_

**Because he had left her forever, she'd been so shattered that she reverted to the only thing she'd ever known that could ease her pain. In the throes of her self-destruction, dreaming of his voice and of his touch, she'd lost hope as well as the love of her life.**

**_De Profundis –_ **

**She now recalled these words from the Latin Mass said for the departed soul of Mitsuko Daitokuji years ago; and recited only recently for her departed lifemate.**

_**De Profundis. **_

_**Out of the Depths.**_

**Napolipolita paused now, realizing that she was her own woman once more. For good or ill, she was at least that. **

_**Out of the Depths we Cry to You.**_

**This survivor of a lifetime of calamities great and small – now stood ramrod straight, squaring her thin shoulders. In that one gesture, all her self-centered fear fell away from her. **

"**Dee," the former Captain Napolipolita stated in her old and unfamiliar voice of command. "Are you with me?"**

**The big woman smiled, sweeping away tears of joy for a change.**

"**Diana?"**

"**Wouldn't miss it for the world, Sister Warrior. Or the Galaxy, for that matter."**

**Nodding to both women, Aysheia Napolipolita – former lifemate of the Terran once known as Hikaru Daitokuji – turned to the Princess with the old glint of adventure in her swollen eyes. **

"**Well, then," she said to her ruler, giving her a low bow and her best tiger-claw salute. "Let's go get your brother!"**


	8. Chapter 8: Sea of Stars

**CHAPTER 8: SEA OF STARS**

**The sun was setting by the time Vigilantia prepped her ship, reserving space and stocking provisions for the three amazons who would accompany her to the Palace at CygniCity on the distant Homeworld of Alpha Cygni. **

**Deesha and Aysheia waited for the ship to be readied, and sat together in one of the Mansion's rose gardens watching the setting sun. **

"**Are you feeling a little better, my Captain?" the big woman inquired.**

"**I still want to die," she replied, her hands shaking so badly that Vigilantia had removed her from packing duty because she dropped every item.**

"**I can remember when you wanted to die once before," Deesha said solemnly. "Remember?"**

**Napolipolita nodded. "My mother had been killed, along with every person I ever called a friend. I didn't say a word for months."**

"**That's right. But when classes started for you, your written communications were nothing less than brilliant. At armaments, you were amazing. At ship design, you did your instructors proud."**

"**Ah," the former Captain sighed. "But I screamed in the throes of nightmare every night, didn't I?"**

**Deesha Dakina-Azawa nodded. "Even considering that that pig Tarim Chitai had attacked you for disturbing her sleep, it was her abuse that gave you your voice back."**

"**I still hate her, even though she's been dead for years and at your hand. I can't thank you enough for that, Dee."**

**The ex-spy nodded. "Well, it was no less what she would try to do to you, years later! She was the one who ended up in the starbase crematorium chamber instead of you. Or me, for that matter."**

"**Thank Cybele for that."**

**Napolipolita now remembered how CygniCity Space Academy cadet Tarim Chitai – whom Terrans would call a sociopath due to her total lack of conscience – had picked on her from the start. **

**XXXXX**

**Aysha had been devastated by her mother's death and her father's desertion. Theram Avaris had never returned for her after the funeral, in spite of his promise. In fact, he deserted his post and left for parts unknown. **

**She had been placed at the Academy for lack of a better place. She ate little and said nothing. Her bad dreams kept her up at night, robbing her of much-needed rest. Often, her weeping woke others around her. All the girls were kind to her, especially that big dumb farm girl named Deesha. They smoothed her hair and patted her shoulder and let her cry it out. **

**It had been only Tarim Chitai who'd shown annoyance rather than empathy. Truth be told, Tarim had never been acquainted with the concepts of kindness or tolerance. Thus, it had been easy to turn her anger into a little campaign of harassment that had gone on for months.**

**Keeping her eyes on any nearby instructors or senior cadets, Tarim would wait for their heads to turn before she would jab the fragile thirteen-year-old in the ribs; or punch her in the arm hard enough to leave purple bruises; or rip her books out of her hand, flinging them down the nearest flight of stairs. Through all this, the child spoke not a single word.**

**Not that Chitai wasn't confronted. **

"**How did Cadet Napolipolita get those bruises, Cadet Chitai?" Academy Headmistress Falizia Tiu had once demanded of her.**

"**I didn't do it," the big teenager had whined. "I swear to the Mother. You're always picking on me! How can you punish me for something I didn't do?"**

**Tiu had eyed the two other cadets who had witnessed the assault in question. But alas – neither would tell the truth in fear of facing sure and swift reprisal. **

**Aysha, of course, wouldn't speak at all. Tiu knew it, but wanted to go through the motions for the girl's sake.**

"**Cadet Napolipolita?"**

**The girl stared at the floor.**

"**That will be all. Thank you, girls," Captain Tiu said smartly, dismissing everyone but Tarim Chitai. **

**She turned to the beefy girl, whose lips were curling up in a smirk. "I know that you lie. I also know that you are a coward to pick on a girl who's lost everyone in her life – her parents, her friends, and her starship home. However, I cannot prove it. I can only assure you that your conduct has been noticed, and I earnestly hope that it will stop. In the meantime, stay away from Napolipolita. She's suffered enough."**

"**Thank you, Headmistress," Chitai had fawned. "I should tell you that it's Cadet Dakina who's hurting Napolipolita, not me. In fact, I saw – "**

**Captain Tiu had shut off her words before she could continue her calumny. "I don't believe a single word you say, Cadet. That is all!"**

**As it had happened, all Tiu could do was to station the Academy instructors and her in the places where Chitai's surreptitious abuse customarily took place. Unfortunately, the adults couldn't be everywhere all the time.**

**The next day, Chitai had pushed Napolipolita into an empty room, slamming the thin child against a visi-screen. "You think you know so much. I'm twice as smart as you and got the lesser score because you cheated!"**

**Aysha looked at her, amazed at the boldness of the lie, yet realizing that Tarim believed it.**

"**I got three hours' sleep last night because of your caterwauling. Who do you think you are, coming here and messing up my life?" Chitai sprang upon the girl, doubling her over and twisting her left arm upward so that the bones grated. Napolipolita remained silent as she tried to wrestle herself from much-bigger cadet's grip. Grinning, Tarim increased the upward pressure on the girl's arm, then jabbed a knee into her kidneys. **

"**Are you going to cry, you little bitch? Are you going to snivel and beg for mercy like your mother did before the Kirlians used her for fencing practice?"**

**At the enormity of the slander upon her valiant mother's name, Napolipolita's tongue unfroze. The girl then shrieked the only words she had said since she'd found her mother lying dead on the bridge of the Pana Gaia.**

"**Not true! Not true! NOT TRUE! NOT TRUE!" Slipping out of Chitai's grasp, the green-haired cadet had whirled around to face her attacker. **

**She heard the pounding of feet and the whoosh of a door opening behind her.**

"**NOT TRUE!" the girl shrieked over and over, even after they carried her to the school infirmary.**

**XXXXX**

**The sun had nearly set, coloring the evening sky with pink and blue.**

"**I don't think you truly want to die, Captain," Deesha said. "Remember what they told us as cadets? 'Prepare for change, for change will come unbidden.'"**

"**Then why do I feel so dreadful?"**

"**Well, in addition to losing Hikaru and recovering from poisoning yourself with booze, I think you're frightened at the prospects of a future here on Earth," the ex-spy responded.**

**Napolipolita nodded, then remained silent for a long while. Finally, she spoke. "I would reign over my empty house as a wealthy queen with an empty heart. Hikiri and Athenia would be on their own in a few short years. My children would visit occasionally. The social elite of Graviton City would continue to cluck their tongues, saying what a shame it was for Hikaru to pass on, but wouldn't bother following their heartfelt condolences with an invitation to dinner."**

**Dee smiled, enjoying the beginnings of her former commander's rant.**

"**The ****National Perspirer**** would continue slapping my face on their front covers with headlines such as _"Brokenhearted Widow Slashes Wrists"_, or _"Brokenhearted Widow Takes Death Dive into Pool",_ or _"Brokenhearted Widow Has Wild Fling with Somebody-or-another";_ their readers could fill in the blanks. It could be a series, a different lover every week! That would perk up their circulation!" **

**Dee laughed out loud. "You'd die of boredom within a year."**

**The green-haired alien pondered this. "Nothing holds me here. My husband is gone and my children no longer need me in their daily lives. Biko is running the zaibatsu quite well without my help."**

**Dee took hold of her friend's bony shoulders, turning her towards herself.**

"**_Then take to the sea of stars, my Captain,"_**** she said.**

**Napolipolita allowed herself a half-smile at this. "Imagine me as the oldest active line officer in the Space Navy!"**

"**I can imagine that just fine."**

"**Imagine me as an old bridge bat with her gray hair in cornrows, like the Adrymachidae women on the Homeworld!"**

"**Nah. How about one of those spiky short cuts? Retro is 'in', from what my old student Buyabah tells me. The snobs around here would pitch a fit!" **

"**That would be good," the ex-captain replied, grinning. "I could dye it purple, just to aggravate them."**

"**Or, dye half of it purple and buzz-cut the other!"**

"**Dammit, Deesha," Napolipolita declared, slapping her hands on her knees. "I do believe I like your thinking!" The two old friends shared a laugh, but Dee suddenly became serious as she looked over Napolipolita's shoulder. **

"**Uh – Cap'n. You have a guest," the big woman said, standing up. "I'll go inside and see if Vigilantia needs any help." Before Aysheia could even look behind her, Dee was halfway down the cobble-stoned path toward the Mansion.**

**XXXXX**

"**Excuse me?" said the male voice behind her.**

**Napolipolita spun around. **

**Commander Hagio Triado Atola (Ret.) stood before her, resplendent in a white and gold tunic, his long silver hair glistening in the evening light. He placed the other hand on his breast, bowing in the traditional Thessalonikan manner. **

**Atola was the father of her second daughter and had unceremoniously dumped them both, more years ago than Napolipolita wanted to think about. Yet here he was before her with a bouquet of cut flowers in his hand, grinning like a monkey as if all was well and everything was forgiven.**

"**For you," he said, presenting them.**

**Wordlessly, the bereaved widow stood and decked him with a roundhouse punch.**

"**You _kakamatandis_," she growled, stepping over his prostrate form and making her way back to the house, ready as she'd ever be to begin her mission for Queen and Empire.**

**THE END**


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